Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story

It is about time to tell the story about this extraordinarily talented woman whose work is most readily visible in the beguiling illustrations on the Rider-Waite Tarot cards. Born in England but also homed in Jamaica and Brooklyn, she attended the Pratt Institute for art classes, recorded Jamaican folk tales and music from her residence there, and engaged in theater, costumery, painting, printing, publishing, and many other activities that piqued her interest. This unusual artistic wonder transcribed the tones of music into her palette of artistic impressions using to her natural synesthesia. Within this hefty volume of more than 400 pages are a collection of the subject’s correspondence with photos, reproductions of her non-tarot art, some selected pages from her publication visitors’ book, and commentaries about her life, along with descriptions of the companions that assisted and/or influenced her. She was well acquainted with the Yeats in England, Stieglizt in New York, and was nicknamed “pixie” by her good friend the famed British actress Ellen Terry. As one of the progressive and gifted luminaries of the 20th century, the phenomenal story of this intrepidly talented woman is gloriously exposed in this beautifully illuminating volume.